Goose lovers – please help!!

[CelticOaksFarm]

Janet sounds like a plan. Wiped out after todays farm hours and today is Home Coming dance night for the teenager.

Someone in the dewlap crew laid an egg today I think. Was palm sized, but they were rolling it around and broke it open.

 

[RURU]

Shellie sounds like they were playing ball with the egg.... Must have been fun if they kept rolling it.

Silly geese found a new thing to play with.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Barb they sure were. Silly things looked at me like I was crazy for picking it up.

 

[Iain Utah]

I am amazed if it was one of the dewlaps. They are not showing any sign of laying eggs or going into breeding mode here. My africans, on the other hand, are definitely segregating into mated pairs and appear to be testing out different potential nesting areas. Both hubby and I go on regular egg hunts, but nothing yet.

 

[pete55]

The Dewlaps do occasionally show signs of some breeding activity at this time of the year. Its usually the mated pairs that do this. However it soon passes as the day length shortens. They usually restart breeding behaviour in February with the first eggs in March.

Its often the smaller breeds and Chinese that will lay a small clutch in Autumn.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Pete the Africans we just sold have been laying every other day for 2 weeks now. The sebbies are breeding out back for about 2-3 days. The one buff dewlap we know is a gander was trying to breed last week, so funny to see him try. With our weather being so different from most on here I notice we get eggs differently, breeding differently, and do things differently. Its nice to not have the massively reduced daylight like others have.

Winter of 2011/2012 we had fertile eggs from the africans in Dec, from the Sebastopols in January. This year the first African eggs (2 weeks ago) were fertile.We also noticed moving birds from colder climates to here triggered breeding soon after they arrived. I would guess from our longer days and warmer temps. This is also why I geared the incubators up in October and start with duck and chicken eggs. So by December I have the kinks worked out, all stable and ready for the geese when they start dropping.

Fun stuff for sure, will be interesting to watch the adult dewlaps when they arrive and see how they react to the warmer temps and more daylight.

 

[Marty1876]

Ok, one of my buffs dewlap toulouse has gotten very aggressive with the other geese. He and two ladies seem to not want the others hanging out with them. And, I saw sebbies jumping on each other in the pool.

The weather here has been spring temps, with rain, for a few weeks off and on. Today, 76. Tomarrow, 78. I can't blaim them, but I hope they don't do too much mating stuff until spring.

 

[Iain Utah]

My juvenile dewlaps are still juvenile acting here, whereas my juvenile africans are acting more adult-like. I would not be surprised to find eggs from my africans before winter truly sets in here.

This past year, in northern Cali, the buffs started laying in late February and had finished by end of April. The greys started a touch later, but went clear through mid May this past spring. I expect our season (which is a little north and much colder) will be March-May.

 

[Marty1876]

My moms geese usually do the mating stuff March-April pretty much. That's what I really expect, but who knows?

The Africans are being normal and sociable. I wonder if the dewlap is just reacting to the newer males and geese maybe. I have not seem them doing any real mating behavior, just the largest buff is acting a little huffy, and two girls seem inclined to hang out with them. Any warm up eggs around here will just be omelets. Let them wait until mating good and proper begins in spring. I'm going to incubate the first 6 of each group, just to check fertility (out of fairness to potential egg buyers) but I don't really feel any need to increase my own flock. I've absolutely got the most beautiful, and eccelectic, batch of pure geese in the county.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

I wasnt looking for eggs last year until February like everyone was saying, other than the oldest birds. Then everyone geared up in January. I figured it has to be our temps and better day length to get them going early

Pooped and off to bed after a day of gate building, pen moving and rabbit colony moving. A cup of tea will hit the spot for sure. This week ahead is gonna s - uck with a capital S. Hubby returns to active duty to out process more for his official retirement.

Nothing like a week packed with appointments to make you want to hide.

Will be nice to plow through this week and get things in place. Then he should be home the rest of the fall right until retirement time and we can get back into farm gear and our new normal.

So I might be MIA this week.... will try and check in between what I am calling our h.ll week of busy.